Let's talk about Rox's new voice and Zojja.

It's to no one's surprise that the changes that were applied to Rox's voice ended up being jarring to most of the community. Many of the players have been listening to Rachel Robinson portraying Rox since 2013, and this sudden change makes little to no sense; especially when only vague statements and answers are given instead of the real deal. It's tiresome that the fans have to dig up information in order to find what's really going on. I'm not bashing Misty Lee; a lot of her work is still impressive, but the change is just too sudden and drastic for people to accept it accordingly. I get it, Rox is growing as a character, but that's also part of the actor's job. You can't just make her an entirely new character like that. Imagine if they switched Steve Blum for someone else to replace Rytlock just like that...

And what about Zojja? What's going on? Will we ever see her? Felicia Day has confirmed that she would like to voice this character once again. We get it, she's a big and all, but so are some of the other actors in the roster, including Steve Blum and Jennifer Hale(who voices two major characters and several NPCs). As far as I know, Day's schedule isn't as tight as it was before; she isn't hosting that much shows or taking part in big series like The Guild or anything. Yes, she is busy raising a family now and all of that, but the lack of news is concerning.

Are we ever going to see these actresses again?

I wouldn't mind if they got a new VA for Zojja if it allowed for bringing the character back into the story.

@Curunen.8729 said:I wouldn't mind if they got a new VA for Zojja if it allowed for bringing the character back into the story.

Completely agree. If Anet can't use, or doesn't want to use Felica Day for Zojja, it's time to get someone else.

It's been far too long.

@Curunen.8729 said:I wouldn't mind if they got a new VA for Zojja if it allowed for bringing the character back into the story.

That's what will happen most likely.

We don't really know why ANet decided to replace Rox's VA nor why Felicia Day hasn't returned.

Nothing that ANet or Day has said rules out any of the usual reasons: maybe she wants more money than ANet can afford. Maybe they want her on dates she can't be available. Maybe they haven't decided what they want to do with Zojja. (Heck sometimes, it seems as if they haven't figured out what they want to do with Caithe or Logan, either.)

ANet's official phrasing for Rachel Robinson's departure was... terse. It's not the sort of thing you say when you're sorry to see someone go. Was it money? Was it Robinson's involvement in the VA strike a while back? (That didn't affect ANet directly, but it might have affected ANet's relationship with Robinson's agency or with the firm ANet hires to find the actors.) Perhaps Robinson became busier or less interested in GW2, creating a continuity problem for ANet. Maybe it was on short notice, while ANet was still recording S4. We aren't likely to know.

Ultimately, some studios will replace actors to keep a franchise running. The series Bewitched had two Darins (D York and D Sargent), because they felt they couldn't do the show without the same character. It was definitely jarring for fans, but unavoidable: the original actor was too injured to continue. Batman had three different actors for Catwoman. And of course, the Dr Who franchise in part depends on having different actors for The Doctor.

Other times, studios will kill off main characters (sometimes to prevent the actor returning). Grey's Anatomy fired the actor playing Dr Burke but didn't kill the character (allowing Washington to return later), whereas they did kill off Dr D Shephard (purportedly so that P Dempsey couldn't return, after he was found "fooling around" on the set to the point of slowing down production).

tl;dr

Are we ever going to see these actresses again?As long as the character isn't dead, maybe.

I'm all for the VA of Zojja being replaced if that's what it takes to give that character some conclusion. The state they left her in after LWS3 E1 is really bad storytelling, in my opinion, especially since all we have to go on is hearsay (and if hearsay isn't reliable/accepted in legal circles it sure as heck shouldn't be reliable/accepted in real life or storytelling).

To be honest, I never even noticed the change of Rox's VA until the first posts started appearing on GW2 forums, maybe it's just that her voice in the first place wasn't being enough distinctive from other generic female charr NPCs.. for my ears atleast.

I don't think zojja has a role to play yet.

This is what i would have said prior to the latest release. However, now that we're moving toward another global scale conflict that involves both the Charr and Asura i wouldn't be shocked at all to see her in a future episode.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:Other times, studios will kill off main characters (sometimes to prevent the actor returning). Grey's Anatomy fired the actor playing Dr Burke but didn't kill the character (allowing Washington to return later), whereas they did kill off Dr D Shephard (purportedly so that P Dempsey couldn't return, after he was found "fooling around" on the set to the point of slowing down production).

fortunately in games we dont need be so overzealous about voice characters. They change the actors, and we pretend it's all good. in particular, I see no problem.

@"RandomWolf.3986" said:but the change is just too sudden and drastic for people to accept it accordingly.

I don't know about the "drastic" part, as I didn't even notice it at first. Some noticed, and someone will always notice when a big change happens, but I think the VA did the best she could to imitate the old voice while still giving it the charr flair. As for the sudden part, how exactly do you propose they make the change? The change was between chapters, between seasons even, and I don't remember anyone noticing back in Episode 1 when the switch probably happened. If they were going to switch VAs, this seems the best way to do so.

It might be suspicious that this change comes out of seemingly nowhere, but ArenaNet has their reasons, and there is probably a good reason why. They have addressed that the change was made and "they want to go a different direction with the character," whatever that means. If they won't say more, there is a reason and we will just have to keep wondering or move on.

@TexZero.7910 said:I don't think zojja has a role to play yet.

So I've been thinking on this particular quote for close to a week and I can safely say that I've come to the following conclusion:

I disagree.

This might have had some weight in Living World Season 3 when things were more Human-centric. However, the problem I have with this is that Zojja's story regarding HoT isn't finished. If we look at a story/plot as having a beginning, middle, and end, then from my perspective at least, she's currently stuck in the middle of her HoT story arc with an unknown condition. We don't know what it is because the Commander hasn't seen her like we did with Logan. We don't know how worse off she is because all we have to go on is hearsay from Rytlock and some random Asura in LWS3 Episode 1 (and personally, if hearsay doesn't hold up in court/law, it doesn't hold up outside of it for me either). Until the Commander actually sees her, all we have is a bunch of guesses and I wouldn't consider any of them to even being close to an educated guess. It's more akin to wild flailing in the wind in an attempt to ward away a swarm of bugs.

The excuse that her voice actor can't voice her doesn't have weight either because they were able to do an entire Current Event regarding reforging Caladbolg, honoring Trahearne and checking on the Pale Tree without needing those actors to voice them. Anet could have killed two birds with one stone by having a Current Event that featured resolving Zojja's condition without having the crutch of needing a voice actor.

That said, I do agree with the second part of the post. Not only do we have a potential conflict between the Charr and the Asura with this latest episode that could spill over into future episodes, we also have Kralkatorrik stronger than ever from the death of Balthazar and as we all know it was Kralk who killed Snaff, her mentor/Master. LWS4 would be a very good time to either have her come back and/or finally allow us to get some closure on the story Anet started with her when she was captured by Mordremoth. In fact, I think it would be criminal not to have her come back or not check up on her some time during LWS4.

Anet really needs to stop faffing about with her condition and bring an end to this arc in her story.